As normal I plan to bring the water just up to the boiling point them stir in the honey, molasses, and the first adition of nutrient/energizer. I will re-hydrate the yeast and pitch once the must is at room temp. Once I reach the FG I rack and add the vanilla.

To all of those brewers out there with SO much more experience then I, how dose this recipe sound?

Interesting idea to use molasses in a mead with honey...that flavor should blend well with the vanilla. I make a vanilla porter with molasses added, and I like the combo.

I think I use more vanilla beans in my porter, but I've never used vanilla in a mead, so with the more delicate taste (in general) of mead, 3 might be enough...you can always add more if you think it's not enough when you sample after a bit of aging in secondary...

__________________Packaged: Fruitcake Old AlePrimary: Simple Cyser '15 Secondary: Why do I keep this line here...?Bulk Aging: Cocobochet, Wild Cider (2014 & 2015)Planned: So many ideas, not enough time to brew them....

16 oz of molasses is a lot of molasses & blackstrap is the strongest flavoured mollases on the store shelf. I used 8oz of regular molasses in a 6 gallon batch of cyser & it almost overpowered the honey. It just seems to me that you'd want your varietal honey(s) to come thru on this, I think 16oz of molasses will overpower the honey, maybe scale it back to 8 or even 6 oz. You can always add more later if you want to. Regards, GF.